Cat Dreams

Pootsie in Dreams & Waking Life

Many people dream about cats, especially people who own and/or care for cats.  It is perhaps one of the most commonly searched dream themes that bring people to my blog so I decided to write a blog just on dreams about cats!

If you do a search on the Internet about the meaning of cats in dreams, you will find various offerings that run from the ridiculous to the profound.  Stay away from explanations that offer pat answers and answers related to superstition.  Our feline friends have had a long and rich relationship with humans collectively and us personally so they deserve much more careful reflection when they appear in our nocturnal journeys of the psyche.

A good starting point for researching the meaning of cats in dreams is to be found in Cloud Nine: A Dreamer’s Dictionary by Sandra A. Thomson which associates a type of psychic energy with the cat: feminine power.  I like this explanation because I personally believe that all images and symbols in dreams represent types of energy within our psyche.  Thus in considering a cat dream symbol I need to ask myself what part of my energy makeup does this dream cat remind me of?  Is it my desire for or joy in independence?  Is it related to the abilities of feminine intuition?  Is it related to a personality trait such as being “catty?”  In a man’s dream would it be related to feminine aspects of his psyche?

In waking life, I do have a tabby cat that is very assertive, curious and smart.  When I dream of her, I not only think of how the dream might relate to or tell me about her as my pet, but also how her energy relates to some kind of energy within me.  In dreams, I am always glad to see her acting boldly and running freely because the dream is probably telling me she is healthy and strong while those aspects of her that live in me are also healthy and strong.

And conversely, when I dream of her being hurt or unwell, it causes me to ask all sorts of questions not only about her well-being but my own as well.  For example, I had a dream that she had a wounded leg which caused her to be immobile.  A while later, that actually did happen and I had to care for her as if she were bedridden.  The dream also was warning me that my own ability to make my way through life with catlike grace and knowing was impeded by wrong turns taken that just weren’t for me.

For additional reading, please see my other blogs:

A Source of Spiritual Insight: The Appearance of Animals in Dreams and Intuitive Inspiration

Working with Dream Themes: Wounded Animals

Working With Dream Themes: Wounded Animals

Reminder to Protect Animals
Image via Petfinder

Dreams of wounded animals are often hard to bear, and perhaps this is good because these kinds of dreams should capture our attention and elicit a response – just as when we see a wounded animal in the street or in the woods. Like all dreams, wounded animal dreams can have different levels of meaning and should be handled accordingly. Here are some suggested questions to ask, if you such a dream.

1. Is it my animal that I am dreaming about? If the wounded animal is one I own or am responsible for in waking life, I need to ask what am I doing that may cause this animal to be wounded as in the dream. For example, if I dream my dog is lying by the road with a broken leg, I need to ask if I am giving it too much freedom to roam freely on the streets or be endangered by on-coming vehicles. Such a dream may be a warning me that this could happen to my dog if I don’t take better care of it.
2. If the animal is not one for which I am responsible for in waking life, I need to ask what part of me does this animal represent—going on the dreamwork premise that everything in a dream represents part of me. If it is a bird, I would ask what part of me is like a bird. Let’s say the bird represents my sense of freedom because when I see birds I think of having freedom to fly and soar.
   Then I then need to look at the injury itself and ask how I am or could be wounded like this animal. Am I doing anything that could contribute to such an injury now or in the future? For example, let’s say I dreamed that a bird has a broken wing and is lying on the ground. It has flown into a glass door. I could associate this injury with my sense of freedom being wounded when my progress in a creative endeavor was stopped by some kind of obstacle I couldn’t see. Perhaps this dream is telling me to go slowly, be more cautious or is warning me I could hit an obstacle. It may be referring to this as already happening and is asking me to take care of the wounded part of myself.
3. Lastly, the dream could be referring to both an animal I own and a part of me. This happened to me when I dreamed of my cat lying on the ground with a leg injury. Sure enough, not too long after having this dream, my cat suffered a leg injury which required surgery. In my own life, soon after the dream, I experienced several setbacks related to trusting my own natural cat-like instincts which greatly impacted my sense of being able to “get around” with my usual ease and grace, forcing me to seek help from others and do more meditation to get back on track. Therefore, the suggestions I give here are based on hindsight wisdom I wish I had practiced better when I had the dream of my injured cat. My dream was clearly warning and trying to help me.

To learn more about dreams, visit my website: http://www.healingdreamgarden.com.